Marble Heart. Gretta Mulrooney

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СКАЧАТЬ to Eddie made her inclined to keep her head down. The world seemed an unpredictable place. She preferred to tackle the small, domestic issues of life, move in a familiar groove where there were certainties. That was why the agency work suited her so well; things had to be done on set days at set times and this pattern rarely varied. The wider scene – politics, the environment, world problems, the chaos resulting from wars and famine – she ignored; other people were welcome to worry about and deal with those problems. She never bought a newspaper and watched only variety shows, soap operas and films on TV.

      When she left school she went to work in a bakery, then in the ladies’ clothes shop where she stayed until she moved to Alice’s agency. At twenty-two she married Bernard Douglas, who had been in her class at school and turned up at her door now and again when he wasn’t driving long-distance lorries. It hadn’t lasted long and she had felt relief tinged with only a shade of melancholy when he had written from Düsseldorf to say he’d got a job based there and he wanted a divorce. She had married him because of panic, seeing that other women of her age were setting up home, choosing curtains and carpets. His motives were unclear. His absences had pervaded the house and even when he was there he imposed so little of himself on it that he left no vacuum when he took off for a trip to the continent. He was capable in a slow, unwitting way, good at practical tasks and she had confused this with dependability, ignoring the evidence that a man who chose to let his work regularly take him far from home might not have domestic interests at heart. The divorce left her with mended window latches, a new drain pipe and guttering. Occasionally she would recall the stale plastic-and-oil smell of his lorry cab and the duty-free brandy fumes he breathed on her as he came through the door.

      Resolutely she put her mistake behind her, saved regular amounts and eventually had enough for the deposit on her flat in Leyton. It was on the first floor of a three-storey fifties block, one-bedroomed with no garden but she’d loved it the moment she had set eyes on it. There was a Grace Ashley verse that said:

       Give me a room

       And I will paint it with love’s loving colours,

       Cushion it with heart’s ease

       And it will be our cherished home.

      Joan had worked those lines into a tapestry when she moved to her flat. It hung in its frame on the living-room wall. She went and read it over to herself on that night when Nina had appeared depressed about her marriage. It meant even more now that she was preparing a home for herself and Rich. The paint for the living room was standing ready inside the front door. They had selected white with a hint of buttercup for the walls and deep yellow gloss for the skirting board and radiator. Joan had spent the previous weekend stripping off the old wallpaper and putting up lining paper. When she told Alice what she was doing, her friend had offered to come and give her a hand with the painting. She was lonely herself, that was why she spent so much time at work. Joan understood that her business had replaced her family, who had abandoned her. Her one son had become a drug user, then joined a road protest group and was living up a tree somewhere. Her husband had taken off with his optician years ago, clearing out their joint bank account the day he left. According to Alice, all that had remained of fifteen years of marriage were his golf clubs and a stack of pornographic magazines stashed in the back of the wardrobe. It was generous of her to root so strongly for Joan and Rich, advising that they should grab whatever happiness came their way. Some people’s scars made them resentful of their friends’ good fortune.

      Alice arrived promptly at eight that evening, dressed in overalls. She had brought her own roller and tray so that they could do two walls each.

      ‘How are you getting on with that new woman, Nina Rawle?’ she asked as they worked.

      ‘Okay. I thought she was a bit stand-offish to start with but it’s just her manner. She’s very weak physically. It must be terrible to be able to do so little when you’re comparatively young.’

      ‘What’s the matter with her?’

      ‘Something wrong with her tissues, that’s all she’s said so far. She moves like an old woman. I think she’s quite depressed.’

      ‘You’ll be good for her then, Joan, you’ll chivvy her along. We’re survivors, you and me, aren’t we? Get on and make the best of things.’

      ‘You have to, don’t you?’

      ‘Suppose so. Any vermouth going?’

      Joan poured two glasses and they took a quick breather while they sipped.

      ‘It’s a lovely colour,’ Alice said. ‘Warm. I hope Rich appreciates all this. I’ll be having words with him if he doesn’t.’

      ‘I don’t think you need worry about that. He’s a smashing man, Alice, he really is. Will you be a witness when we get married? His brother’s agreed to be the other one.’

      Alice raised her glass. ‘’Course I will. It will be a pleasure, as long as you promise me you won’t want to do anything daft like give up your job.’

      ‘No chance. I love the job. Anyway, we’ll need the money.’

      They carried on painting, finishing by ten-thirty. Alice washed out the rollers while Joan wiped splashes off the skirting board.

      ‘That Nina Rawle,’ Alice said, ‘did she tell you who recommended you?’

      ‘No. It was probably Jenny Crisp, the young woman with the baby in Crouch End.’

      Alice shook her head. ‘That’s what I’d assumed, but it wasn’t her. I know because she rang today and she said she hadn’t mentioned us to anyone. I’m sure we haven’t any other customers from Crouch End.’

      ‘I don’t know then. I must be more famous than I thought!’

      Alice was sniffing the air. ‘There’s a very scented smell in this kitchen, sort of musky. What is it, some kind of air freshener?’

      Joan pointed to the cantaloupe sitting on top of the fridge. ‘It’s that melon. Strong, isn’t it? They were on a special offer, I thought I’d try one.’

      They had another vermouth as a nightcap and Alice left. Joan knew she wouldn’t be going straight home, though; she’d be calling at the office to check the answer-phone. She couldn’t wait to introduce Alice to Rich; she knew that they’d like each other. Her life felt good. For the first time in many years, everything was coming together. She raised her glass to Rich’s photo in the kitchen and said goodnight, sleep tight to him, as she always did.

3

       NINA

      ‘Cara Majella,

      ‘I wonder if you are asleep now in your dormitory, breathing in dry Ethiopian air? I have no idea of time-zone differences between our respective continents. You’re probably toiling in the daylight, helping with irrigation or holding a health class. You used to refer to sleep as “John O’ Dreams”. It was a name you’d got from your mother, one of those comforting childhood sayings that adults cleave to. “I’m ready for John O’Dreams,” you would yawn at the end of a long evening in the students’ union bar, shaking your hair out. When I was bleary-eyed after listening to one of Finn’s lengthy position papers on Irish capitalism you would say that John O’Dreams was after me. СКАЧАТЬ